Takumi was sitting at the kitchen table with both Kudo daughters when Saguru went looking for him. Ran was elsewhere in the house and he had passed Kudo in the study on his way. Takumi looked up from watching the girls draw at the sound of Saguru's borrowed cane. Saguru hadn't stopped to think much about how the last twenty four hours were affecting Takumi before, but now that he was sure Kuroba wasn't going to die at any moment, he could see signs of strain. Takumi looked like he had slept worse than Saguru, dark circles under his eyes, and there was a listlessness to how he had been watching the girls. It shifted to focus and worry as Saguru entered the room.

"Is Kid…?" Takumi asked vaguely.

"Better," Saguru said. "He won't be moving for a while, but for the moment he is stable and aware enough."

"Good." Takumi slumped. Midori elbowed him as he covered part of her paper and Takumi shifted away without complaint. "Before we go, can I see him? Just… The only time I saw him up close, he was bleeding out…"

"Of course." Seeing Kid alive if not well might help ease Takumi's mind.

"Kid's the thief Tou-san's always chasing right?" Midori asked. "The one in white?"

"Yes, Kid is a thief in white," Saguru said.

"Oh. I like him. He left Kaa-san flowers once," Midori said drawing a flower then, probably meant to be one of Kuroba's roses if the red color was anything to go by. "It's sad he got hurt."

"He'll get better," Hanae said. She smacked down the green crayon she had been using to grab a brown one. Stripey brown lines branched out from the mass of green swirls. "He always gets away. Tou-san says." Her sister nodded like this had to be the only conclusion since Kudo's word was truth.

"I'm sure he will," Saguru said hoping it would be the truth. He squished the part of his brain reciting facts about recovery times and infection rates, about how his own infected bullet wound had ruined his knee worse than it would have otherwise been. He was allowed to hope against the odds. Saguru looked to Takumi. "Did you want to see Kid now? I know we can't stay here much longer. Aoko-san is worried and I still have to turn in my report on last night."

Takumi nodded. He followed Saguru from the kitchen. "Hakuba-sensei," Takumi murmured as they neared Kid's room. "What are you going to put on the reports?"

"Kid escaped. He was shot down, but the site was clear when we arrived." Saguru glanced sidelong at Takumi's troubled expression. "That Kid is most likely injured but got away with the gem. Neither of us saw anything."

The frown deepened. "…even to Kaa-san?"

"No, I'll tell her the full truth."

"…It feels wrong," Takumi said so quietly Saguru almost didn't hear him. "Kaa-san always told me it was important to tell the truth to the police."

Saguru sighed. "Sometimes it's more complicated than truth or lies. Sometimes truths can kill and lies save, and sometimes they make things worse. It's something you'll have to judge on your own. In this case it's better not to say everything for both Kid and our sakes. We did help a criminal after all."

"To save his life," Takumi said. "And Kudo-san helped too."

"Exactly."

Takumi frowned at him, but he set the topic aside as they reached Kid's room. Kuroba was asleep again, not peacefully though. A grimace of discomfort showed on the small part of his face not hidden by the mask. Takumi took one step into the room and stared like he was trying to decode something from Kuroba's mass of bandages.

"I…somehow I didn't think it was possible for Kid to get hurt badly," Takumi admitted. "He's practically a legend at this point."

"It's easy to forget there's someone mortal behind the mask," Saguru said, because he had almost forgotten as well over the years, more intent on Kid than remembering Kuroba existed behind him.

There was scuffling behind them and Midori and Hanae poked their heads into the room. They craned their necks at Kid in the bed.

"He's not very big," Hanae said, sounding disappointed.

"Are you supposed to be here?" Saguru asked.

"Kaa-san didn't say we couldn't," Midori said. She tugged on Takumi's arm and lifted her hands so she could be held up. Takumi did, though he looked at Saguru like he was trying to figure out if this was okay or not. Midori made a soft unhappy sound when she was high enough to see Kid clearly. "He looks sad."

"He's a thief. He should be sad because he's in a detective's house," Hanae said. "Once he's healthy he'll probably get arrested."

"I'm gonna draw him a picture." Midori wiggled in Takumi's arms until he set her down again and she pointed at Kid. "What does he like?"

"Er. Gems?" Takumi said.

"Birds," Saguru suggested. "He keeps doves."

Midori nodded and tugged her sister away. Hanae went complaining the whole way that, "He's a bad guy, Midori, why are we cheering him up?"

Takumi looked after them, his face scrunched somewhere between bewildered and reluctantly amused. "I'm kind of glad I don't have siblings after all," he said.

Kuroba shifted in the bed, discomfort growing on his face. It made Saguru want to smooth it away but it was far far better than the blankness of unconsciousness. "Have you seen enough?" Saguru asked.

Takumi looked back at Kid. It was surprising that he didn't cross the room and try to peek under Kid's mask. At his age, Saguru wouldn't have hesitated to satisfy his curiosity. "Yeah," Takumi said. "I've seen enough."

*o*o*

It was a quiet trip to Aoko's. They both had thoughts on their mind, and the closer they got to Aoko in Ekoda, the more nervous Takumi became. Saguru didn't blame him; he was also nervous to see Aoko face to face. An angry Aoko was more than a little intimidating. He shouldn't have to worry about dodging mops these days at least.

Aoko was on them within seconds of Takumi opening the front door. Saguru didn't think she'd slept at all last night from the looks of it, her eyes red rimmed and hands just a bit shaky the way limbs got after too much caffeine and adrenaline mixing badly together. Her hair was a mess of wild tangles that made her look larger and Saguru found himself taking a step back at her desperate expression. She crushed Takumi into an embrace the moment she was within arm's reach.

"You absolute idiot," she growled. "I raised you to be smarter than that. You could have died."

Takumi tentatively hugged her back with the arm not trapped between their bodies. "I'm sorry, Kaa-san."

"You'd better be you brat," Aoko choked. There were tears in her eyes. Saguru looked away. There wasn't anywhere to go to give them privacy. "You're grounded. Indefinitely."

Takumi nodded into her shoulder, clinging closer.

"You're okay? You're not hurt?"

And this time Takumi choked on tears. "I'm fine. I'm…I was so scared…" He shifted so he could hold her with both arms just as tight as she was holding him. "The building exploded and I didn't know where you were. People were screaming and you were still in there. And then Kid got shot and there was so much blood." He was crying in earnest now and Aoko held him close as he let go of all the fear and worry from the last twelve hours.

Aoko rocked back and forth on her heels as Takumi cried. There were tears in her eyes but she was glaring fiercely past his shoulder at nothing even as her voice was gentle. "It's over now. I'm okay. You're okay. It's all over." Saguru wasn't sure how long they held each other as Saguru tried to blend into the wall. Eventually, Takumi's tears slowed and Aoko's rocking stopped and they pulled apart. Aoko wiped tears from Takumi's face with her handkerchief. "Go to the kitchen and get yourself a cup of tea," she said to her son. "It will help."

Takumi nodded and slid his shoes off before walking toward the kitchen, still wiping at his face.

Aoko looked after him like she wanted to snatch him back into a hug again. As soon as he was out of sight though, she rounded on Saguru. Worry morphed back into rage. "You should have said the moment you realized he was on site."

Saguru winced. "Aoko-san, it was only a few minutes before the heist began. I only glimpsed him on the security cameras; I had to go see that it really was him."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

It was, but what would Aoko have done? Stopped coordinating the entire heist? She was the central driving force, everyone else pivoted around her and Saguru wasn't really needed anywhere. "I found him and I tried to get him out before the heist," Saguru said. "It was inevitable that we got caught up in the fallout."

Aoko shook her head. It had been inevitable though, if not caught in the heist itself, then the crowds of panicking people instead. "Then you should have called as soon as you were out of danger. Or as soon as Kid was out of danger, dammit. You're such a fucking hypocrite. Or did someone else make me promise I'd call if I knew anything about Kid so we could keep each other up to date?" She snorted at Saguru's flinch. "I thought so. God I'm just so…Rrgh. Fuck Kid." She ran her hands though her hair, tangling it further.

"I should have called," Saguru said. "I forgot. I am sorry."

"Fat lot of good sorry does anyone," Aoko said tiredly. "How bad?"

"Expect months of recovery."

"Damn it. I hate him. I hate him so much."

You do but you don't, Saguru thought as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"You're not going to tell me where he is, are you?"

"It is probably best for everyone involved if you don't know where he's at for the moment." It wasn't that he thought Aoko would arrest Kuroba or actually try to kill him, but having Aoko show up right now would be the last thing Kuroba needed for his health.

"Fine." Aoko closed her eyes. "Fine. Can you leave? Please."

"I'll leave immediately." He did just that, backing away toward the door only to be stopped by Aoko's voice when he touched the doorknob.

"Hakuba. I need your report on the heist within the next twenty four hours. Write an official one and one for my eyes only please."

"Of course. …May I ask the casualty rate from last night?"

"No one died. I have two officers that are in critical condition and half a dozen others hospitalized. Five people in the crowds ended up in the hospital from the panic. Dozens more have minor injuries."

"Thank you." Kuroba would hate to hear this. "Goodbye, Aoko-san."

She didn't say anything else, so Saguru left. He wondered if there would only be animosity between them after this. Aoko was not a friend, but he hoped he had not forever lost the possibility of her becoming one.

*o*o*

Saguru stopped at his apartment before heading back to Kudo's. He stood in his entryway for a good five minutes feeling the emptiness of the room pressing in on him. It struck him again that he'd almost lost Kuroba last night. There would have been no more evening conversations over tea or random gifts of food left on his kitchen counter or that specific double tap on his door that when Kuroba was using his manners instead of barging in. Just four short months and Kuroba had become a center point in his life.

There was something wrong with him because the thought of losing Kuroba felt almost on par with losing Mel had been, with only a fraction of the history to account for that feeling.

Saguru stood in the shadows of the entryway where the light from the afternoon sun didn't reach and considered it rationally; love was love regardless of the time experiencing it. And he was in love with Kuroba. There wasn't a point in deluding himself to that reality anymore. The emotions wouldn't go anywhere. Saguru didn't expect them to and friendship was enough between them, but he couldn't deny the existence of his emotions anymore either.

The soft golden light of afternoon peeking through the window didn't really fit the weight of this revelation. But then so rarely did nature choose to align with emotional turmoil outside of popular media.

Saguru loved Kuroba and had almost lost him; if it was in his power, he would not lose someone he loved like that again.

*o*o*

Saguru broke into Kuroba's apartment to gather changes of clothes and other things Kuroba might need. Kuroba's things joined Saguru's own in a large cloth grocery bag repurposed into a makeshift suitcase. He wasn't sure all what to bring; clothing and toiletries were obvious, but anything else was anyone's guess what Kuroba would want. Saguru added the mp3 player he found on Kuroba's bedside table. With a concussion he wouldn't be able to do anything mentally taxing for a while, but music could straddle the line between entertaining and relaxing.

He took the time to update both his mother and Kuroba's on the heist fallout, and then he was off again, headed back to Kudo's home.

Kudo raised an eyebrow at Saguru's bag but didn't comment on it. It was rather rude for Saguru to invite himself to stay longer, but rudeness be damned, he'd sleep better within shouting distance of Kuroba.

After settling his things into a guest room offered by Ran and getting Kuroba's things to him, Saguru sat down with Kudo and his wife in their study, children thankfully elsewhere for the moment.

"Takumi-kun got back to his mother in one piece?" Kudo asked lightly.

"More or less. I am afraid I'm in bad graces with her at the moment as well. I imagine this will make parent teacher interactions even more awkward in the future." Saguru sighed. "Takumi-kun is my student," he added when Kudo raised an eyebrow.

"An interesting bit of luck ending up the teacher to Kaitou Kid's son."

"You have no idea." What sort of expression would Kudo make if Saguru revealed they were neighbors? That would be giving too much away though, and they were at least pretending that they couldn't easily pick apart Kid's identity like freeing a boiled egg from a fault-littered shell.

"…You know Kid pretty well, right?" Kudo asked.

"Well enough." Not well enough; Kuroba kept himself a step away even as he had opened up around Saguru. There would always be depths to him that Saguru wouldn't be allowed to see.

"How would you say his life is?"

Kudo didn't look like he was prying to find clues. He looked contemplative, a crease between his brows and a quirk to his lips that spoke more of concern than a desire to tear away the last veils of Kid's identity. How odd. But then, if Kuroba could become interested in Kudo's wellbeing after years of interaction it wasn't really that odd for it to go both ways. Saguru had felt that way even at the height of their rivalry. "It's very busy," Saguru said honestly. "He works, has a son, and is Kid. I sometimes wonder at how he functions with as little sleep as he seems to get. He's a good father even if a bit misguided at times. He's lonely. He seems to have many acquaintances and few close friends. I'm not sure he knows how to stop wearing masks anymore, or if he's afraid of what he'd find if he put the roles away." Kudo's expression softened into something like sadness or perhaps compassion. If Saguru remembered right, Kudo was someone who caught his criminals, but didn't let them throw their lives away. It was something that had tipped Saguru's opinion a bit more toward favor. Even if he had once pointed a gun on Kid. "Why?"

"We've talked a few times. He's come close to breaking before…I was wondering if it was still true or if life got better since we last talked."

Ah. Between Aoko's divorce and Jii's death, he could see it straining Kuroba to near shattering. It was a miracle he hadn't broken unlike Saguru's own breakdown. "I've seen him smile and laugh and mean it. There are bad days, but good ones too."

"I'm glad." Kudo shared a smile with Ran then and Saguru again got the feeling that he was missing something vital in Kuroba's history with the Kudo family. There were possibilities he could speculate on, but without proof he wouldn't put weight into any of them.

But there was Kuroba now to think about. The past would keep its mysteries. "He's going to be recovering for a long time," Saguru said. "Can you keep him here until he can move on his own?"

A wealth of meaning shifted between Kudo and Ran before Ran shrugged slightly. "It isn't a problem," Kudo said. "He's welcome here."

"And so are you," Ran added.

"Thank you." It was more than generous for them to do this. "Kudo-san, about last night…the crash site; it's been cleaned up?"

"I called in a few favors," Kudo said. "There might still be traces of blood, but nothing usable to track back to him."

Good. Saguru nodded. "That should buy some time then… The ones who set everything up are likely wondering if he lived or not."

"No body means they're going to play it toward him living," Shinichi observed. "The gem?"

"Kid hid it."

Kudo nodded. "I was surprised he went with the roof, but I guess he wasn't given much choice in his escape route. The bombs pretty much ensured he could only flee up, and where the bomb damage wasn't there were officers cutting off his route. The weather was too perfect for the glider too. It felt like an obvious setup."

"He was flying a bit off the best direction of the wind. That might have been what saved him." Saguru tried to recreate the trajectories of Kuroba's entrance wounds. Gliding the direction he had been, with the angle of the wounds… "Kudo-san, do you happen to have a map? I'm curious what buildings the sniper might have been at. I know Ao—Nakamori-keibu had a watch at certain perimeter trying to keep the chance of a sniper down." Saguru stumbled over Aoko's name and pretended he hadn't.

Kudo pulled out his phone, fiddling with it to bring up a map of the area. He set it on the coffee table between them. "This is the museum," Kudo said. "And Kid left in this direction…" His finger scrolled the map forward.

"You found us about here, correct?" Saguru asked, pointing to what appeared to be the correct alley.

"Yes. Depending on Kid's speed, he'd have to have been hit within this radius to crash there…" Kudo traced a circle above the phone.

"Meaning his shooter had to be within a certain radius to hit him."

"Exactly."

"Fifteen hundred meter radius?"

"Extend it a bit further to be on the safe side…" They bent forward over the phone, studying it intently. "The damage is worse on the right side."

"Half from the crash, but I concede to your point; the bullet wounds come from that angle. It was a taller building. The entry wounds were almost even with his height."

"Mm. Maybe a bit from below…too straight for his leg wound otherwise…." Kudo shifted the map around before they both agreed on a potential area. "I know this area. The tallest building around there is an office building."

"It's outside of Nakamori-keibu's radius too." Saguru felt the tingle of satisfaction that piecing pieces together always gave him. It was paired with the gut feeling that the sniper's location had been important. He zoomed closer. Ambrosia Industries? It was foreign, and it also sounded vaguely familiar for some reason… He'd had a case that involved them at one point, he was pretty sure, but it had to have been a very long time ago.

"Something wrong?" Kudo asked. Saguru looked up into sharp-focused eyes. He also looked like he was on the edge of some sort of connection.

"I've heard of the company before." When though? Not in Japan, in London, back, far back.

Kudo took the phone and looked the company up. "Ambrosia Industries…Not much on them."

"They make cosmetics don't they?" Ran asked, leaning in. Saguru had almost forgotten she was there. "Sonoko has a few things from their brand. She said they had the best anti-aging creams."

A cosmetics company? That sparked something. Saguru took the phone from Shinichi. Yes, under the international subsidiaries was a different name. Elysium. "I had a case almost fifteen years ago looking into an employee from Elysium. My client thought that the employee had stolen her research data, but there hadn't been any clear trail to link that they were using it in their formulas." He frowned. "That was the case I got my knee shot out." A bit further down on the list was another name he remembered. He gripped the phone tight. "And I was investigating a theft from Progenetics almost a year ago when…when my partner was killed."

"That's…" Kudo's brow furrowed.

"It is entirely possible for that to be circumstantial and unrelated." Saguru handed the phone back. The rest of the names didn't spark any memories, though there was always the possibility that there were other connections. "It makes me wonder, though, as all three instances involved gunmen."

"I have come across a few of these places," Kudo said slowly. "Murder cases."

Of course murders. Kudo worked almost exclusively with murders. "Thefts for me."

"They were mostly crimes of passion though; the setting didn't seem important to them. There was one that was one employee killing the other though. They never explained why, just turned themselves in." Kudo tapped his chin.

"It would be a bit odd to use the roof of a place you were associated with to attempt a murder," Saguru said.

"Or it could be the perfect cover because it would be unexpected." Kudo shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time."

Right. Kudo had taken out an international crime organization before he was twenty. He was probably something of an expert on shadowy dealings and large scale crime rings. "Kudo-san, how much do you know about what Kid is searching for?"

"Only that it is a large gemstone and that there is another interested party."

"There was more than one Kid," Ran added softly.

Kudo's eyes flicked to her and he nodded. "The first Kid was active about seven years internationally before he vanished. The second Kid appeared eight years later and was much younger than the first. A protégé perhaps, since his methodology and skills are very similar to the first. With the sort of people that follow Kid, I can guess that the first Kid either died or was crippled."

"He died," Saguru said bluntly. "In what appeared to be an accident. A very public accident. His identity was found out by the organization chasing him and they ensured he wouldn't be able to defy them again. How Kid has avoided something similar happening, I have no idea. Perhaps because he has made no effort to stand out in his civilian life." It was too easy to picture 'accidents' happening to Aoko or Kuroba or Takumi, leaving nothing but blank eyed corpses behind. With Aoko it would not even be hard to arrange. Perhaps they had already tried, but with all the danger already present in Aoko's day to day life, it had fallen into one more close call among many.

"The second Kid was a teenager when he first appeared," Ran said. "Both Shinichi and I got close often enough to figure that much out."

"He was sixteen when he first took Kid's mantle." All three of them winced at the implications. It was funny in a way; at the time it wouldn't have felt odd. They had all been teenagers that ran into danger on a regular basis. The violent side of humanity and its dark possibilities were very real presences and dangers in their lives. And yet at sixteen they had felt adults already. At over thirty, looking back they had all been barely more than children dealing with things that they would have tried to protect their younger selves from now. "He's spent the last decade and a half trying to take down a crime organization on his own."

Kudo and Ran exchanged a look, Kudo's questioning, Ran's accepting. "I owe Kid," Kudo said after a moment. "Not many people know this, but he helped several times in taking down the Black Organization. Not always willingly." Kudo rubbed a hand through his hair. It stood up at the back, for a moment making him look much more like Kuroba. "I said I wouldn't get involved in anything at that scale again if I could help it." Kudo looked Saguru in the eyes, clearly struggling.

Oh. "He's bad at accepting help," Saguru said drily, "but at this point I don't think he has much of a choice. Kudo-san, I don't want to see Kid die. I've permanently lost the person I care for most in the last year, and then alienated the majority of my friends through my own actions; I don't intend to lose anyone else. If that means coming out of retirement and going against a crime organization of an unknown size and reach, I will do it. I have far less to lose these days than I did before." As he said the words, the resolution that had been building in him since he knew Kuroba had survived solidified. He had failed to save Mel or get him justice. His detective pursuits may very well have gotten Mel killed. But if there was any chance that his skills could help Kuroba, he would use them. Even with such a large chance of failing. "Would you be willing to help me in this?"

"I…" Kudo trailed off. He looked at the phone in his hands. "You'd be surprised how many detectives care about Kid. More than we should considering we try to catch him time after time. He causes chaos and dangerous people follow him, but Kid doesn't use guns, does his best to not hurt anyone be it bystander or officer doing their job…" It was hard to be indifferent or remain angry at someone you interacted with for over a decade even if said interactions were anything but friendly. "I care. I'll hide Kid here until he recovers completely if that's what he needs. But…"

"I'm not asking for you to take an active role rooting out the shadows," Saguru said. "I need your mind and your connections; those will be more than enough. I intend to do as much legwork as I can myself." He was aware of the irony, a man with a cane doing the legwork, but for Kuroba he'd do it.

Ran touched Kudo's elbow. Kudo swallowed thickly. "I can provide connections and help talk over whatever you find. I'd offer more, but I can't be open about working on this, not with a family."

"I understand."

"I can make sure Kid is taken care of in the meantime," Ran said.

Saguru nodded, grateful his mind spun plans, poked at connections as he closed his eyes. Fragmentary details stood out at him—snipers and connected companies and the multitude of wounds Kuroba has had since Saguru returned to Japan. Aoko's angry face, Kuroba's locked bedroom door and equally locked closet, accidents that were not accidents, Jii's death, Kuroba Chikage's absence from this heist, Kudo's half smile when he talked about Kid and the years spent chasing him. Nothing clicked yet, but it was a start. "We will have to talk to Kid. Undoubtedly he has evidence we can work with." He had almost two decades to throw himself at the problem; he had to have gotten somewhere with it. But Kuroba wasn't a detective, and he didn't have the connections he needed to take down a large scale organization. He was smart enough that he likely put most of the pieces together by now, but that didn't mean he could do anything with it on his own.

"He's probably asleep again," Ran said. "Ai-san has him resting as much as possible so it might be a while before you can talk."

"I understand. He has a lot of recovering to do." And there were other things Saguru could do. Namely talk to his father; he wanted his perspective as well as Kudo's on taking down a large scale criminal enterprise. And there was one other thing to take care of while he was at the manor. "I think," he said slowly, "I have one more errand to do today after all."

"Okay," Kudo said. "Do what you need to do. I have a write up to do for the Kid task force, so I'll be in my office if you need anything."

"Ah." Ran pulled out a slip of paper. "And our cell phone numbers if you need to get in touch."

"Thank you." He quickly entered the numbers into his phone and sent along his own contact info in a text. "Let me know if anything changes while I am gone?"

"Of course." Ran smiled. Kudo was already lost looking up something on his phone again, the sharp thinking face firmly in place.